Jewish people are commanded under Jewish law to refrain from 39 categories of labor on the Sabbath, holidays, and festivals, i.e., Jewish events. These rules, the timing of the holidays, and the rules governing the interplay there between may be found in the Jewish Law, or Halakhah. The Halakhah includes the Tanakh (i.e., Torah, Nevi'im, and Ktuvim) and Talmudic Literature (which includes the Mishnah, Tosefta, Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Talmud), each of which are herein incorporated by reference. Flipping on or off a common wall light switch constitutes a prohibited act under the category of lighting and extinguishing a fire. Therefore, Jewish people take extreme care not to accidentally change the state of a light by inadvertently bumping the switch. In addition, there is a concern where small children or non-Jewish people change the desired state of the light during a holiday unaware that a Jewish person cannot return the light to its previous state or request another person to do so.
Jewish people go to great lengths in order to prevent or at least mitigate these concerns by painstakingly taping down numerous light switches just prior to a holiday. An alternate solution offered by the current state of the art is an external magnetic light switch cover that is manually positioned over the switch face plate to create a physical barrier to the on/off switch.
Since securing the state of the lights is usually one of the last tasks completed just moments before the start of a holiday, these time-consuming methods produce stress as the person searches for the tape or switch covers and rushes to physically secure the light switch from manipulation during the holiday.
Further, because Jewish people are not allowed to change the state of the lights when not being used during the Sabbath an enormous amount of energy and money is wasted. Sometimes the weekly Sabbath and other Jewish holidays occur in conjunction with each other, leaving numerous lights on for up to 3 days.